Tuesday Morning Notes

Reston Now Reader Survey — Please help us make Reston Now even better by taking our 2017 reader survey! This year, we’re partnering with the University of Kansas journalism school, which is studying sites like ours. The results of the survey will help us improve the site and will help researchers better understand our role in informing the Reston community. [Reston Now/KU]

Design-Build Firm Marks Grand Opening — Home remodeling company Synergy Design & Construction officially opened its new showroom (11501 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 250) last week. The business began in 2008 and has about a dozen employees. [Press Release]

Police Show Solidarity with Muslim Community — Reston patrol officers of the Fairfax County Police Department visited the All Dulles Area Muslim Society and the Al Fatih Academy to show their support following this weekend’s mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec. [Fairfax County Police Department/Facebook]

RTC Parking ‘Uninviting and Confusing’ — Reston resident Peter Carlivati has visited Bowtie Cinemas at Reston Town Center twice in the last month, and has left with a bad taste in his mouth after trying to pay for parking with cash. [Fairfax Times]

Trump has made so many bad and fraudulent business decisions in his career, there is no reason to think he might not have voted to buy Tetra–especially if he had a business interest in it, like Eve Thompson.

th

Wow you really are crazy!!

Forgone conclusion

Why not?

jmsullivan

I’m honestly surprised he wasn’t involved in something this screwed up. The sustained incompetence we’ve seen in this deal is kind of his signature.

Scott H

On the RTC parking story….the Friday before last, I attempted to go to not your average Joes. Parking lot was packed (assume ppl are walking to RTC) and NYAJ’s has an hour wait. We decided to walk over to RTC and this was the parking sign…over 4k empty spaces, Friday at 8pm. Every restaurant we walked by had a decent crowd, but there were plenty of extra tables. Every retail shop was empty, as we’re the streets. Will be interesting to see how paid parking plays out. No sympathy for Boston Properties, but feel bad for the potential harm to retailers.

Mike M

I’ll be impressed if Reston “protests” force the BP to knock off the nonsense. It has been one of the more obnoxious business decisions I’ve ever seen. I am skeptical, due to the high percetage of zombies spenders around here, but it seems to be one issue that unifies lots of Restonians. I have not been there since. Perhaps one day this will be a chapter in one of those Management texts full of case studies.

Scott H

If we start a rumor that BP is a Trump donor and Trump is in favor of paid parking, we could guarantee a March on RTC culminating with the vagina-hatted mob overtaking the skating rink, impeding those on skates, and chanting “this is what democracy looks like!”

Clydes was right

Let’s assume for a second BP prefers the business traveller over the local resident:

. Spends more money on food with less restrictions
. Probably has a rental car and needs to pay for parking
. Is properly equipped to pay via smart/phone

You would think that half of those business travellers already have secured parking to get to work.

The other half has to go through this painful app before they can enjoy the cultural Mekka of RTC.

So the issue here is very simple but two fold: a complex apps rollout and an unhappy local customer. These arebvery easy to fix, on a scale from 1 to 10 I think it’s a 4.

That said RTC has done very little to own up to their problems, I am actually surprised how stubborn and inflexible RTC management has been! Any business that prides itself on an elite clientele would go out of their way to fix this pay scheme and reputation.

JoeInReston

Business travelers may have already paid for parking at the Hyatt hotel. Agree with your last point.

Joe Heflin

BXP is the symbol for Boston Properties which is a publicly traded REIT. They actually report @4:00PM today for the fourth quarter ending 12/31. Tomorrow morning there will be a publicly available conference call to discuss those results along with, I believe, comments for the coming year.http://ir.bostonproperties.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=120176&p=irol-irhome is their investor relations page and will have contact information and phone numbers for the conference call.

My guess is that they have patience and we’re going to have to get used to paid parking and the app. They have their conference call tomorrow morning but I doubt that Town Center is the priority that many hope it will be.